


Side C: Snapshots at the end of the Universe

by natcat5



Series: Multidimensional Intergalactic Road Trip [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Young Avengers Vol. 2 (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-09 02:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4329939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/pseuds/natcat5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots from the kitchen while cruising in a spaceship on the road trip from hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Gods and Teenage Boys

 

 

Billy Kaplan is in the kitchen when she walks in.

He’s staring down, hands white-knuckled at the edge of the counter. There’s a jar of peanut butter to the side, and various knives and forks scattered about. Like he’d been taking things out, changing his mind, and then repeating the process. Or maybe just couldn’t find a spoon and gave up.

This is her god.

He’s got a half-pensive, half frustrated expression on his face. Creases in between his eyes and on his forehead. His hair’s having even more trouble deciding which way it wants to flop than usual, like he’s been running his hands through it constantly.

They’ve only been on this road trip from hell for a few weeks, dodging the Skrulls that seem to have made it their business to harass them at every turn, but she’s already weirdly familiar with a man- a _boy –_ who has existed only as an idea, a concept, an idol, for the majority of her life.

And what America Chavez has found, is that Billy Kaplan, the proto-Demiurge, spends an inordinate amount look half pensive, half frustrated with creases on his face and hair looking like it’s undergone some serious abuse. He’s a worrier, which is darkly ironic for someone who has the potential to be omnipotent, and his spell being the cause of their current state of vagrancy has left him slouching around like he’s got the world on his shoulders. Which he will one day, maybe. Except not the world, but the multiverse.

It’s hard figuring out how to interact with him.

She wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him sometimes. She wants to let him rest his stupid fluffy head on her shoulder at others. She feels like she’s committing heresy just thinking about being that familiar with him. And then she feels ridiculous because he’s a boy, not a God.

Not yet.

They’ve been cooped up on the same spaceship for over three weeks. She’s seen him half-asleep against his boyfriend, with patchy stubble all over his face. She’s seen him spill coffee down the front of his shirt, and hastily magic it away before anyone notices. She’s seen him try and hide the fact that he’s picking his nose, even though he is clearly picking his nose. And on that note, she’s seen him fish for a wedgy for at _least_ twenty seconds.

He’s not the Demiurge, and he’s not her god. He’s a boy who can name off all the Avengers, past and present, living and dead, in alphabetical order. He’s a boy who can quote entire episodes of his favourite sci-fi shows. He’s a boy who had an action figure of the woman who turned out to be his mom, and allegedly had an intense moral debate about whether or not he should keep it. He’s an absolute nerd.

And he’s also a boy who fucked up majorly. Who is technically (though there’s no way Loki is 100% guilt-free, whatever he says) responsible for them all being out to drift and hunted as they are. Who is clearly aware of that fact, in the way he walks with his shoulders hunched, with his head ducked. The absolutely miserable expression he gets when Teddy’s not looking, like the entire reality of the situation is dawning on him again.

The way he looks now, silently troubled, alone in the kitchen with his hands clutching the counter like it’s his last lifeline.

Her intention had been to grab an apple from the fridge and get out, hustle to the Mario Kart competition that Noh-Varr’s apparently set up in his room. But instead she lingers in the doorway, wondering if she should say something.

But what the hell would she say?

They’re teammates by necessity. She wouldn’t go anywhere near him otherwise. They’ve been tied together by this fucking mess of a situation and it’s his fault but he’s a clueless kid who has had less then two years to get used to having the powers of a god and he has no idea the potential he holds inside of him and at this point in the game she’s pretty sure finding out about it would just make him more miserable and afraid of his own power.

She doesn’t know what to fucking say. _This is your fault, but try not to sulk too much about it. I have good authority that you’ll (probably) get better at this whole reality-warping thing. Just try and fuck up less until then._

She’s really not the consoling type.

She doesn’t get to decide either way, however, because that’s when Billy looks up and sees her. And lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. Or Hanukkah menorah. Whatever. The point is, she has never seen someone so fucking happy to see her in her life, and it’s more than a little disconcerting.

“America!” says Billy, and he sounds _relieved,_ “Wow, you have _no idea_ how glad I am to see you! Okay, don’t laugh, but I can’t get this stupid jar of peanut butter open and Teddy will never let me live it down if I ask him.”

…

“Seriously!” he exclaims, gesturing at the cluttered counter, “I’ve tried everything, forks, knives-,”

“Your powers?” She suggests incredulously, because he may not be a god (yet) but a peanut butter jar? Really? _Really?_

But Billy just stares at her, makes a weird pouty face that makes her want to both ruffle his hair and kick him in the backside.

“My powers? To open a jar of peanut butter?” he says, in a tone that suggests the idea morally offends him. Whether it’s some bizarre form of fragile masculinity or a witch honor code or his patented stubbornness that Teddy has assured her is buried but not gone is anyone’s guess.

This _boy._

“America, _please,”_ he continues, “Teddy and Noh-Varr are waiting for me to finish our Mario Kart tournament and I can’t go back and ask them to open a jar for my stupid noodle arms-,”

He looks bereaved and lost and a dozen other expressions better suited for a boy angsting over letting an interdimensional parasite into his home and less for a boy frustrated by a tightly screwed _peanut butter jar_. He’s looking at her like she’s his last hope in the universe. Because she can open a _peanut butter jar_.

And isn’t that just like a teenage boy? Preoccupied with the problem of the moment. Usually involving acquiring food and not embarrassing himself in front of his significant other and friends. Clueless and hopeless and weirdly endearing if not unbearably obnoxious. Just like a teenage boy.

Noting like a god.

America smiles.

“Your hopeless, you know that?” she says, crossing the floor to snatch the jar of the counter and wrest it open with an easy twist of her wrist, “Honestly, I don’t know how you get by.”

Billy grins at her, and it’s lopsided and cute and so _young_.

“Day by day of course,” he says simply, “I’m only human, after all.”


	2. The Future and the Dreams

Space is…

Space is…

Is…

It’s…

Indefinable.

Kate settles on that, as opposed to _confusing_ or _mind-boggling,_ or any words that might make the official Avengers, who have been to space _many_ times, look down on her with an expression of mild, but clear condescension. She’s spent _years_ dodging that look, or meeting it head on with as a mature a face as she can pull while trying not to pout. Spending one-on-one time with Clint hasn’t helped, because Hawkeye the older is about the furthest thing from a responsible adult one could find, and hanging around him makes her lax.

But being in _outer space? That_ makes her jaw drop, her eyes widen, and her hands and face press against the glass window like she’s a little girl again, staring out of her daddy’s jet. Except infinitely better, because her dad is nowhere in the vicinity and instead there’s a cute boy dancing in his underwear.

Going off-world has never appealed to her. She’s perfectly fine taking on the back-alley baddies that plague the good citizens of New York on a nightly basis. And occasionally slightly tougher evil-doers like Mobsters and Kang the Conqueror. But the endless expanse of space? Home of the Kree and the Skrulls and everything else? If they come to Earth, crashing New York City like it’s a bad party and needing immediate and merciless ass-kicking, that’s fine. But going out into the great beyond to meet them on their home turf? Aside from the base opinion that space, by virtue of being space, is insanely cool, Kate’s never had any hankerings to take a trip up to the stars herself.

But one wild night out later, followed immediately by a Skrull attack, and then leading directly into a tango with a multidimensional parasite out for her good friend’s nubile young magic? The endless vastness of space started looking _real_ good.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its downfalls. For example, the sun is absent, as is the moon, so her sleep cycle is fucked to hell. It’s barely been a week, but already everyone’s devolved into ‘sleep when tired, on whatever horizontal surface is available’.

So her phone is telling her that it’s 5pm, New York Time, but she appears to be the only one in action. Loki’s stretched out on the training room floor, allegedly meditating, but most likely dozing. America’s on the ship’s only couch, probably napping, but also likely to snap to attention at the slightest sign of danger. Noh-Varr’s asleep in the cockpit, Billy’s asleep in his room, and Teddy-

Has just walked into the kitchen, and looks as surprised to see her as she is to see him.

Prior to this fiasco, it had been a few months since they last saw each other face to face. Maybe close to half a year, if she’s being honest with herself. She’s been busy! And Teddy’s been…

Teddy’s been with Billy. And Billy, while _miles_ better than he was, has still been something of a homebody for the past while. It feels like decades, sometimes, since they were last a team.

Teddy doesn’t look terribly different. His hair’s cut a little closer and he doesn’t have all his piercings in, which gives him a weirdly respectable look, rather than the punk golden retriever aesthetic he used to sport. His shoulders appear a little broader, he might be a little taller, but he’s holding himself the same. Unimposing despite his size, and tightly held together.

He peers into the kitchen with one hand pressed against the doorframe, hovering hesitantly with his other hand rubbing the back of his head.

“I didn’t think anyone else was up,” he says, as if apologizing. For what, Kate’s not sure. It’s not like this is her kitchen. Or her ship. Or her designated ‘alone time’ where she’s the only one who’s allowed to be awake.

 _Oh Teddy_ , he hasn’t changed a bit.

 “Same,” replies Kate, lifting one shoulder in half a shrug. Then she gestures to the mug of hot chocolate sitting in front of her, freshly brewed and steaming. “C’mon in, the pot’s still hot.”

Teddy shuffles over to the cocoa pot; legs of his too-long sleep pants dragging on the ground. A product of a hasty shopping trip for clothes at a mall in Florida. Which had ended with them blasting away from the foaming-at-the-mouth assistant managers hot on their tail. Whether or not that was because of Mother or because Loki got bored and started animating the mannequins was anyone’s guess. But hey, Kate had snagged a cute sweater before they’d been forced to retreat, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Teddy joins her at the kitchen counter, cup of cocoa cradled in his hands tenderly. He looks a little folded in on himself, like there’s something he’s trying to keep inside, keep together. The way he’s hunched over the counter, staring down at the steaming drink, makes her stomach twist. She spends a few moments puzzling out what, specifically, could be bothering him, and then has to resist the urge to smack herself on the forehead.

 _Kate,_ _I know it’s been awhile, but you need to be a better friend than that,_ she admonishes herself mentally. _That thing trying to kill you is wearing his mother’s face._

That thought is followed immediately by a heavy _Oh Billy,_ because he’s putting on a brave face, but this has to be tearing him up inside. Her desire to shake him is far overcome by her desire to hug him. Or to curl up on a bed with him and let him cry into her shoulder. Because on one hand, _trying to bring someone back from the dead_? _Really Billy_? But on the other hand, he’d said he hadn’t tried to bring her back, he’d tried to pull her away from a moment right before she died. He’d tried to use his chaos magic to do something good. He’d tried to give back to the boyfriend who had lost everything, but still managed to do everything for him.

Talk about ‘when you try so hard and you don’t succeed’. It makes Kate want to punch something. Teddy doesn’t deserve this. Billy doesn’t deserve the guilt for this.

It sucks that the rest of them have gotten yoinked along for the ride, but the occasional appearance of dead parents aside, this can’t be taking the same kind of emotional toll on them as it is on Billy and Teddy.

And she can see it, in the way Teddy is hunched over the counter, face drawn and tired. He needs a hug too. They all need hugs. Hell, Kate could use a hug, and she hasn’t even been assaulted by a parent, living or dead.

They haven’t spoken to each other again yet, and the silence is stretching in a way that’s just a bit awkward. She’d like to say something, maybe a witty oneliner, or a blunt truth to break the ice, but there’s no easy way to say ‘the elephant in the room is the threat of our impending doom at the hands of an interdimensional parasite. So why don’t we talk about something else. Current events aside, how have you been?’

It’s not that they haven’t really seen each other or acted on the same team in months- well, it’s not _entirely_ that. It’s also that there’s still his huge, looming, _unknown_ hovering over all of them like a giant thundercloud. Or weighing down on them, like that time she and Clint ate an entire large pizza and a half only to later discover that the pizzeria had been written up for using expired cheese and suspicious meat alternatives. A heavy, oppressive, _we’re fucked_ feeling.

They don’t know where they’re going, other than away. They don’t know how long it’s going to take Billy to learn the magic necessary to unravel Mother’s spell. They don’t know Loki’s true motive, they don’t know a damn thing about America, and they don’t know how long they’re going to be fugitives from their own parents and every adult in the galaxy.

Soooo… Things are a little uncertain right now. And they can both feel it, standing in the kitchen, basting in their own awkwardness.

“Why so glum, chum?” Kate asks finally, breaking the silence with the first thing that pops into her head. Only to immediately have to resist the urge to slam her head repeatedly against the countertop. Because Really? A rhyme? Really, Kate?

Teddy looks baffled. Like he doesn't understand how that assortment of words could have come out of her mouth at this particular moment, in this situation, which is to say, the situation in which they are being hunted down by a parasite wearing his mother’s face that wants to eat his boyfriend’s soul or whatever.

The baffled expression morphs into a ‘really, Kate?’ eyebrow quirk, and she throws up her hands in resignation.

“I’m sorry! I was at a lost or conversation starters!” She says defensively before folding her arms across her chest. “I am aware of the obvious, which you don’t have to state, so I wasn’t trying to be an idiot with that question, pinkie promise.”

She points a finger at him, squinting her eyes. “We’ve been hauling ass across the galaxy for a week without a single breather. I haven’t seen your puppy faced mug in months. I’m asking for a status update, Hulkling. Spare no deets. Let’s make the smallest of talks to fill in the blanks of the exciting lives we’ve been living.”

 _Kate, you need sleep,_ says a voice in her head that sound suspiciously like Clint, but that’s ridiculous, because Clint doesn’t track hours well enough to know when people need sleep.

Meanwhile, Teddy has gone from baffled to exasperated to bemused, and a small smile lifts up the corners of his mouth.

“Was that your roundabout way of saying, ‘Hi Teddy, how have you been the past few months?’” He asks, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders.

Kate half shrugs as an answer, hiding her face in her mug of hot chocolate.

“I’ve been okay,” he continues, “I doubt life’s been as exciting for me as it’s been for you. With Barton, right?”

“Hawkeye and Hawkeye partners in purple and love for archaic weapons,” Kate replies, miming the action of pulling back on a bow. “It’s been fun. Not that I don’t like saving the world from high tech alien invaders and megalomaniacs with power over magic and/or time, but it’s nice to just bust your standard back alley creeps for a bit. The kind that slip through the cracks because they’re not blowing up shit with lasers.” _Like the one that attacked me,_ she doesn’t say, but her grip tightens a little around her mug. “Somehow it’s more satisfying then destroying an invading alien spaceship.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” answers Teddy with a nod, “I mean, I had to be more careful when I was busting minor crime and not evil robots or durable aliens, but- I guess there’s a different feel. Between saving the world and saving a person.”

“Not that saving the world’s not important,” Kate adds, pointing her finger in the air, “Can’t have persons without a world.”

“ ‘Can’t have persons without a world’,” Teddy repeats with a snort, “I should make that the blog title of my tumblr.”

“Hey, that is a Kate Bishop original. You better credit and link back that shit.” She says, with a mock seriousness that has Teddy laughing.

“I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep, or if you’ve just gotten sillier hanging around Barton,” he says with a rueful shake of his head, still smiling, “It’s nice talking to you Kate, you don’t update your Instagram nearly enough for us not to miss you.”

“The problem with Instagram is that sometimes baddies who are aware of your secret identity use it to find out where you’re currently letting loose and not on your guard,” she replies with a remorseful smile.

She doesn’t miss that Teddy had said ‘us’ just now. And that’s reassuring, right? That he’s still referring to himself and Billy as a singular unit. Not that Kate’s _worried_ about Billy and Teddy, per se. Those two seem pretty locked down, for better or worse. Red string of fate, missing pieces of a whole, or two wholes that just worked better when together. The teeth-rotting, unbearably cheesy stuff that Kate never seems to quite pull off herself.

But Kate also knows that Billy’s been having a tough time, and that while Teddy had still been greening up and brawling with evil-doers on the street, Billy hadn’t. He’d still been shut in, hurt by Cassie’s death, by Jonas’s death and Nate’s betrayal. It had hit him the hardest, and it had clearly still been hurting when this parasite nonsense happened, making everything worse.

She’s worried.

“Okay, sorry, gotta ruin fun laugh times where we talk about everything except what we’re actually thinking about,” says Kate, raising one hand in the air, “I have questions.”

Teddy looks perplexed, and then, apprehensive, peering at her from over the rim of his mug with one eyebrow raised again.

Kate inhales, “How has Billy been?”

There’s a long pause then, and Kate can see Teddy tense up, and then try and act like he didn’t just tense up, and then look uncomfortable and unhappy while struggling to find his words.

“You mean since…” he gestures wildly with one hand, “All this? Or before. After the team broke up?”

“Before,” she says, and then, “And after. I mean, he just seems…I know shit’s kind of hitting the fan, but, you know Billy used to be like, if shit was hitting the fan, he’d be charging in with a smart ass remark. Like, he was so stubborn and thickheaded that you could uses his head as a battering ram. And I’m not saying a little less impulse is a bad thing, it’s just-,”

She remembers to stop for air and lets her babble of words cut off mid-sentence, staring down into her cup.

It’s empty. Dammit.

“He just seems really subdued.” She finishes, “And I know I’ve been off doing my own thing. And we text but- maybe it’s shitty of me to ditch you guys and then suddenly ask how you’ve been.”

“You didn’t ditch us,” says Teddy firmly, and then with a sigh, “We- I guess we all kind of ditched ourselves more than anything. It’s like Billy said. We’re superheroes, and we tried not to be, and it all kind of backfired on us.”

Teddy looks miserable again, and Kate makes a face, because isn’t this exact situation and sad face that she had initially set out to avoid?

“This isn’t yours and Billy’s fault you know,” she says, and sharpens her eyes into a glare at the ‘sure it’s not’ look Teddy gives her in response.

“No, I’m serious,” she snaps, “Like, some less than thought through decisions were made, but you heard mini- evil Norse God, that bait was designed to catch young mages eager to do some good in the world. Billy didn’t so much summon a demon as fall into a trap. And that’s different. He can’t blame himself for this.”

 _Not entirely anyways_ , she doesn’t say. Because while it is prudent for people in leadership positions to point out when team members have made less than stellar decisions with less than stellar consequences, she really doesn’t think now’s the time for it. Especially since Teddy’s looking really torn up.

“Kate, I understand, but you can’t deny that we messed up really badly,” says Teddy, and she can hear him fighting to keep his voice level, trying to stop it from shaking. “If I hadn’t gotten upset with him over- God it’s so stupid, I knew how much the battle with Doom affected him and I knew there was more to him not wanting to do superhero stuff, but I did it anyway, and got upset when he found out and got upset, even though I _knew_ he’d be upset, but I still-,”

“Teddy-,”

“If I hadn’t said the things I did, he wouldn’t have used his reality warping magic. He wouldn’t have even seen the bait, let alone fall for it. It’s my fault as much as-,”

“No, nada, _stop.”_ She interrupts, putting on her leader voice for the last command and making an X with her arms. “Fault lies with, A- interdimensional parasites who are evil, and B- good intentions being taken advantage of. And Teddy? Take it from me. Blaming yourself into a corner is no way to move forward and to learn and to grow as a person.”

Teddy’s eyes move from the counter to her face, and she can see it, see him remembering the reason she quit as well. The guilt that had sat on her shoulders almost as heavily as it had on Billy’s.

His eyes skirt away and he takes another drink of hot chocolate.

“…He finally moved away from that window, and I thought that was it.” He says quietly, “I thought, he’s gotten over it, he’s stopped blaming himself, he’s ready to move on. But…he still didn’t want to do superhero stuff. Even after we got recognized as Avengers, which is what we always wanted, he still didn't…”

Teddy trails off, looking frustrated.

“I didn’t understand,” he whispers, “I think I still don’t. His Mom said it was depression, when he was by the window, but because it was caused by grief and trauma she didn’t want to rush to meds or anything like that. Thought it would be best to give him time. And then he left the window and it seemed better.” He takes a deep breath, fingers of one hand pressed against his cheek, “But looking back now, he still didn’t want to _do_ anything. And I, I didn’t _get_ it. If he was off the window, if he was better, he should be more open to the idea, right? Of going back to superheroing? And then I ran out and started doing stuff behind his back and got upset at him when he got upset at me. But now, I’m thinking, that maybe I just wasn’t seeing it. That even up until then, he was still…”

“You think he might still have been depressed, like, as in the illness and not the state of being,” Kate says, filling in the silence, “And you think he’s been depressed the entire time, and you’re beating yourself up for not noticing. Which, you need to stop right now, seriously.”

“We _live_ together, Kate!” says Teddy sharply, “His parents have work and his brothers have school. But Billy and I go to the _same_ school, we spend basically all our time together, if anyone should have noticed- There is literally no reason for me _not_ to have noticed.”

“Unless, communication isn’t a thing?” Kate suggests, not letting Teddy’s angry tone get to her, “You’ve been busy secret superheroing and Billy’s been not talking about his feelings so you both have been having to do a lot of guesswork? Seriously, you guys are nearly perfect, but even near perf couples have to slow down and have heart to hearts sometimes. You can’t expect yourself to know everything about your significant other if you don’t open up to each other.” She grimaces, tapping her fingers against the side of her empty mug. “So…maybe work on communicating better in the future. But like I said, dwelling on past mistakes? Not the way to move forward.”

Teddy blows out a breath and rubs his forehead with one hand before pushing it back through his hair.

“I can’t even tell if I’m just overreacting,” he mutters, “I mean, if he was depressed, this would just make it worse, right? This…this thing with Mother and with being on the run and his parents getting possessed. But he seems more focused, and more determined, and you know, like he’s okay with being a superhero again. Not like he was just forced into it. I don’t know.”

“Again, communication, says I,” Kate replies, pointing a finger, “Seriously. If you don’t know, then talk to the boy. If you’ve got worries, air ‘em out.”

“I know,” mutters Teddy, in a tone of voice Kate totally doesn’t trust, because it sounds like a ‘I’m avoiding problems currently and so I’m not going to do what you just suggested’ voice. Stupid teenage boys.

She’s about to call him out on it too, but then Teddy lifts his eyes up from the counter and looks at her, smiling faintly.

“…he’s still pretty stubborn you know,” he comments, a fond look on his face, “Don’t let him fool you. I mean, he doesn’t talk shit as much as he used to, but if you caught him at the right time you could still use his head to break down the gates of Troy.”

And is she going to let that slide? This blatant changing of conversational direction so that he doesn’t have to talk about what he doesn’t want to do?

_Sigh._

“You kidding?” retorts Kate with a tired smirk, “He can’t say two words to Loki without talking shit. I think maybe you’re just too distracted by his pretty face.”  

A relieved smile blooms across Teddy’s face, and he immediately launches into a tale of some time some person said the wrong thing to them when they were walking down the street, and Billy laid the verbal smackdown on them, while wearing the nerdiest Stark Trek shirt known to man.

He’s clearly glad to move onto a more lighthearted topic, a happier memory, and Kate lets him. She nods and smiles attentively, tired, but happy to be with her friend again. She’s missed them. Teddy and Billy. And Eli and Tommy. And Jonas. And Cassie. Everything that they were before they got their first real taste of loss.

But it’s like she told Teddy, it’s no use painting yourself into a corner with guilt and bad memories. The only way to go is up and forward. She’s suffered but she’s stronger for it. And she thinks it’s the same with Billy, focused on getting his magic right and fixing the mistake he made. And she thinks it’ll be the same with Teddy too.

She’s still worried about them, and she’s worried about herself, and she’s worried about this ramshackle new team that’s been thrown together out of necessity more than anything else. But she’s missed being active, and she’s missed talking to Teddy, and she’s missed worrying about Billy and his reckless, easily bruised heart. And she’s got high hopes for their future. High hopes for good things coming out of this road trip from hell. They just need to give it time.

Her watch says it’s half past 5pm in New York, and she’s blasting through the deep expanse of space, surrounded by a trillion stars and chased by a dangerous dimension-hopping parasite. She’s finally on a team again, with two of her best friends, and while the situation’s a little bleak, she can’t help but be hopeful. Space is the place of limitless possibilities, after all.

 _The perfect place for us,_ she thinks, and smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did what I never do and edited this while absolutely exhausted. I'll take another look in the morning but I apologize if there's anything glaringly awful.


	3. Reconfiguration

First off, sorry, this is a product of me not planning things. 

This story is moving! I've decided to follow a...series of prompts, so to speak, and because of that the first chapter of this story doesn't fit the theme. However, the second chapter of this story does, because I'm impatient and couldn't wait to get my prompt idea fleshed out before I posted it. I didn't want to delete the first chapter, since it's what everyone came for. So the second chapter of this story will be reposted as the first chapter of a new story that I'm just about to post, along with a new chapter that I've just finished. This story will remain up and marked as complete. So check my profile for that new story if you're interested.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm so terribly unorganized. 


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